We all know the death of Bruce Wayne's parents set him on the road to fighting injustice, but it was Liam Neeson's Ducard (okay, fine, he's Ra's al Ghul – if you haven't seen Batman Begins yet then you're reading the wrong article) who first sows the seeds of what Batman will become: "If you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, and if they can't stop you, then you become something else entirely... a legend, Mr Wayne." Has to be said, that kind of backfired on old Ra's a little in the end.

24. "So that's what that feels like..." (The Dark Knight Rises)

Batman finally gets a taste of his own medicine after years of performing his own vanishing act. Up high on a Gotham rooftop with Selina Kyle discussing tactics, Batman's attention momentarily shifts to The Bat behind him, only for Bruce to turn back and discover that – poof – she's gone. There's a beat, then the classic line: "...So that's what that feels like." A great gag, and proof that Batman even talks to himself in that growly voice.

23. The Batcave is riddled (Batman Forever)

Despite the generally unwelcome tonal shift towards camp comedy in Batman Forever, Jim Carrey is great value for money as The Riddler, and never better than when he gains access to the not-so-top security Batcave. Spreading wanton destruction as he chucks his grenades every which way, The Riddler adopts the role of a baseball pitcher, complete with spit and crotch grab. It's a great 'bit' from Carrey; you suspect it was his idea.

22. The Joker's home video (The Dark Knight)

We already know The Joker is extremely devious and quite possibly insane, but when video of him abusing a wannabe Batman vigilante is broadcast on the news, Bruce Wayne finally sees how dangerously deranged he is. The moment he barks "LOOK AT ME!" is when the scene flips from 'downright creepy' to 'drop-your-popcorn terrifying' in a heartbeat. The Joker signs off with his trademark cackle, before horrifying screams are heard and the video cuts out abruptly. Not so funny any more, is he?

21. "At least tell me your name..." (Batman Begins)

Batman doesn't tell any old hobo his secret identity (although by the end of The Dark Knight Rises, even Alfred's brother's milkman knows), but the moment Bats lets Rachel Dawes in on the gig is one to remember. Rather than blurt out "I'm Bruce Wayne! OMG, amirite?", Batman reveals his alter-ego subtly, by way of his ethos: "It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me." In retrospect, the moment is somewhat ruined by the knowledge that Katie Holmes just saved the life of the little boy who grew up to be that asshat Joffrey from Game Of Thrones.

20. Back-up (Batman Begins)

Bruce Wayne's relationship with his favourite flying rodents comes to a head in the scene where he's surrounded by cops in Arkham Asylum, with seemingly no way out. Except, y'know, he's The Goddamn Batman. Pushing a small button in his heel, Batman engages sonar, which causes a cloud of bats to swarm the building, providing him with the perfect cover to escape. The moment Bats sends his winged army down the stairwell and then follows them is a total visual Batgasm.

19. The Penguin's last act (Batman Returns)

We thought we'd seen the last of Oswald Cobblepot when he fell into the toxic waters in his lair, but it wasn't to be his final curtain. While Batman is distracted trying to find the body of Catwoman, The Penguin emerges from the deep, half dead and barfing black stuff down his chin, before accidentally picking a "cute" umbrella with which to kill Bats. "I'll murder you momentarily, but first, I could really use a cool drink of ice water," he coughs, dropping dead where he's treated to a funeral march by his beloved penguins. Aww.

18. "Holy sardine!" (Batman: The Movie)

The feature-length outing for Adam West's caped crusader wasn't exactly aiming for gritty realism, but the moment Batman emerges from the ocean with a rubber shark hanging from his leg surely eclipses even the most ridiculous moments in Batman & Robin in terms of unexpected lunacy. After thumping it senseless and kicking it around the head for a bit, Batman has the good sense to use his shark repellent bat spray, which – with the benefit of hindsight – would have been the first thing we'd have tried.

17. Enter Batman (Batman Forever)

"Batman! Ehhhh!" screams an extra who we hope was well paid, as Val Kilmer's caped hero makes a vertical entrance through the skylight into Two-Face's lavish neon party – making sure to thwomp a couple of goons once he's landed. "Your entrance was good," ribs The Riddler, "His was better." It's a rare Forever moment when Batman is actually a fearsome spectacle and not just a berk in a rubber suit.

16. Dark side of the bat (Batman Begins)

The Scarecrow's toxins play havoc with one's fear centre, meaning the irony is especially delicious when the erstwhile Dr Crane gets a taste of his own medicine and sees Batman in a whole new light. As if an angry Christian Bale in a claustrophobic rubber onesie wasn't threatening enough, the hallucinating Scarecrow sees Batman as a grotesque, snarling beast; the kind that would be rejected from HR Giger's nightmares for being "too freaky".

15. The heist (The Dark Knight)

It's possibly the most finely tuned and elaborate character introduction in modern movie history: our first glimpse of The Joker, as played by Heath Ledger. The Dark Knight's opening bank heist, shot in IMAX for added action, is meticulously plotted and filled with great single-serving character moments (William Fichtner's badass bank manager for one). Ultimately though, it's an unforgettable intro to Batman's eternal nemesis, who sets out his stall early: "I believe whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you stranger."

14. Batman vs Bane (The Dark Knight Rises)

It's the showdown we were all waiting for ever since we saw the first trailer for The Dark Knight Rises: the moment Batman finally fights an opponent who is physically superior to him. Bane is more than a match for Wayne, mushing him to a pulp and smashing his cowl while the treacherous Catwoman looks on, appalled. Finally, Bane scoops up Batman like a rag doll and brings him crashing down on his knee, breaking his back – and, momentarily at least, his spirit. That's one Dark Knight that won't be rising for a while.

13. The Joker vs The Batwing (Batman)

"Come on you, gruesome son of a bitch... come to me!" Jack Nicholson's Joker stands firm when faced with the incoming sight of the Batwing, zeroing in on its target. Instead of running for cover, the mentalist formerly known as Jack Napier simply pulls a ludicrously long-barrelled pistol from his purple trousers and takes a pot-shot at the cockpit, sending Batman's frazzled craft flying over his head where it crashes at high speed. All that hardware at his disposal and it was brought down by a pop-gun.

12. Batman in mourning (Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm)

This animated Batman movie written by Paul Dini is easily the equal of the Burton/Nolan films, examining as it does the division between Bruce Wayne and his crimefighting alter-ego. Bruce's most vulnerable moment comes when he visits his parents' graves, torn apart by guilt that he no longer grieves for them like he did and that falling in love has seen him stray from the path he chose. "I didn't count on being happy..." That's Bruce Wayne in a nutshell.

11. The Bat (The Dark Knight Rises)

Lucius Fox's most gnarly bit of kit gets most of the money shots in The Dark Knight Rises. The first reveal in the alleyway is a real crowd-pleaser and the scene where he gives Catwoman a lift is cool ("This isn't a car...") but the final aerial chase is astonishing, as Batman pilots The Bat through Gotham's skyscrapers while attempting to halt Talia al Ghul's plot to destroy the city. And you thought the Tumbler was Batman's most badass method of transportation.

10. Flippin' truck (The Dark Knight)

This muscular car chase through the underground tunnels of Gotham is the action-packed centrepiece of The Dark Knight, with The Joker and his henchmen firing all sorts of high-end weaponry at the SWAT van carrying Harvey Dent. Ledger's clown seems to have the edge on the GCPD, particularly when he brings down one of their choppers, but Batman takes the spoils by jettisoning the destroyed Tumbler and flipping his adversary's truck in jaw-dropping fashion with his two-wheeled Batpod. The final wall-ride/axle spin flourish is insanely cool and impossible to watch just once.

It was The Joker who said "If you're gotta go, go with a smile," but it's Christopher Walken's character, ruthless industrialist Max Shreck, who really dies with a smile on his face. Despite unloading all his bullets into Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman, Shreck runs out of lead before she runs out of lives and receives a very literal kiss of death when Selina Kyle sticks her tongue – and her taser – in his gob. Walken is burned to a crisp, but we bet it was totally worth it.

8. "SWEAR TO ME!" (Batman Begins)

You might have giggled to yourself when you first heard Christian Bale's gravelly Batvoice, but the moment he uses it in action – when threatening dirty cop Flass, who's hanging upside down and six stories up – it clicks into place. "Where are the other drugs going?" Bats barks. "I don't know. I swear to God!" comes the terrified reply. "SWEAR TO ME!" growls Batman, who clearly means business. Honestly, we felt chills.

7. The birth of The Joker (Batman)

Heath Ledger won us over and Mark Hamill proved there was life after Luke, but for some, there is only one Joker – and it's Jack Nicholson. Before his toxic makeover he was Jack Napier, but after taking a swim in a vat of goo, he became the Clown Prince of Crime. Burton expertly sells the moment The Joker descends into madness, turning tears into laughter when gazing at his newly-mangled visage in a mirror. That's one sick joke, but nobody else is laughing.

6. Catwoman's face lick (Batman Returns)

Clad in figure-hugging black leather and speaking with a flirtatious purr, Catwoman injected sex into the Batman movieverse back in 1992. With Batman prone at her mercy, she straddles the caped crusader and moves in for the kill. "Mistletoe can be deadly if you eat it," says Bats, apropos of nothing whatsoever. "Ah, but a kiss can be even deadlier if you mean it..." replies the fine feline, leaning in to smack one on Batman before sensually licking his face like the cat that got the cream. It's the moment an entire generation of teenage boys starting getting 'special' stirrings they couldn't yet understand.

5. From hero to zero (The Dark Knight)

The true tragedy of The Dark Knight isn't the fall from grace of Harvey Dent, but the sacrifice made by Batman to maintain Dent's squeaky-clean image, taking a murder rap and becoming a fugitive in order to keep Gotham from imploding. Jim Gordon, who's just seen Batman save his family, gets suitably poetic on our asses: "He's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll hunt him. Because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A dark knight."

It's odd to think that the idea of Batman being a gothic icon could seem so alien to movie audiences, but before Tim Burton brought the character to the big screen in 1989, the campy Adam West incarnation was the best known incarnation. Burton and Michael Keaton had other ideas, however, and made Batman a fearsome physical presence; the first time we meet him, he's hanging a crook off the edge of a building. "I'm not going to kill you. I want you to do me a favour. I want you to tell all your friends about me," he tells the quivering crim. "Who are you?" A pause, and an answer: "I'm Batman." You are now.

3. "Wanna see a magic trick?" (The Dark Knight)

If you ever want an example of The Joker's sick sense of humour, here it is: the perfect blend of unconscionable violence and childlike humour. Having just gatecrashed Maroni's get-together, The Joker senses his audience needs some light entertainment, promising to "make this pencil... disappear." The mystery doesn't last long, as a goon approaches and has his head viciously slammed into the table – and by extension, the pencil – with only The Joker's "Ta-da! It's... gone!" as an epitaph. The Joker is no longer available for children's parties.

2. The end (The Dark Knight Rises)

Even divorced from the sad fact you're watching Chris Nolan's last few minutes of a Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises' ending is incredibly emotional, thanks mainly to a stellar piece of on-the-spot sobbing from Michael Caine's Alfred ("I failed you!"). Thankfully, Nolan knows better than to bury the Batman, and in a neat last minute one-two punch, we see Alfred catch a glimpse of a very-much-alive Bruce Wayne dining in Florence with Selina, while John Blake AKA you-know-who discovers the Batcave and what lies within. It's a hugely satisfying ending to a near perfect trilogy.

Batman's finest moment features no fisticuffs or gadgets or theatrical swooping – just an interrogation. The subject? The Joker, who's stashed away Bruce's squeeze Rachel and Gotham's "white knight" DA Harvey Dent in a sick and twisted game of hide and seek. This is the scene in which Batman realises his brute strength means nothing against The Joker's evil cunning – how can you threaten an enemy that doesn't want to kill you but wants you to kill him? It's this fascinating clash of opposing ideologies – justice versus chaos – that underscores The Dark Knight and outlines the two iconic characters perfectly. The chemistry is electric and you can't take your eyes off either one of them.